Average London asking prices increase by almost £20k in October

An October increase of 4.3% or less would have meant London prices fell year-on-year. However, the 18,497 sellers who came to the market in the last month increased their average asking prices by 5% compared to sellers in the previous month. This is a normal reaction to the start of the autumn selling season after the summer holiday period. New sellers and their estate agents have an inbuilt instinct to increase prices every October – which has happened in London every year since 2002. Their behaviour has not changed since the credit crunch, and while the Lehman Brothers collapse in September 2008 held the October rise down to just 0.3%, last October saw a spike of 6.5%. This illustrates how firmly the expectation of rising property prices is embedded in the home owner psyche in the capital.